Right now, I’m reading Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son by Kay Ann Johnson, and edited by Amy Klaztkin (amazon). Johnson is a professor in Asian studies at Hampshire College. Motivated partially by her own adoption of a child from China, she has done a number of studies on adoption in China and of the effect the population control policies have had on Chinese families. She and Klaztkin have updated these studies somewhat and anthologized them. They are particularly making this information available to the Chinese adoption community, so they can have a better understanding of the social and political dynamics at work that have combined to permit international adoptions from China.
I still have a lot of this book yet to read, but I've also learned a lot from it. Here are the impressions I have from this book so far:
China is a Big Country
This seems obvious, but it's easy to forget. After all, the whole thing is just “China.” But because it’s so big, you really can’t generalize about the whole nation. For example, it’s easy to talk about a Chinese abandoning babies, and even about their having a “tradition” of doing so. However, that really only applies to some areas, such as Hunan and Hubei, and it’s less evident in other areas (pg. 52).
China is Changing Fast
This studies in this book directly cover a period of almost fifteen years (1989–2003), and it talks about the history of China from much before then. Things change rapidly everywhere, and just as China is too big geographically to make generalizations about, so changes in Chinese culture over time makes generalizations difficult.
For example, even in the two provinces mentioned above, which some said had a “tradition” of abandoning babies, the number of healthy abandoned babies declined from the 1950s until the 1970s. But in the late 1970s, the population control program popularly known as the “one-child policy” started, and the number of abandoned babies rose sharply (pg. 53). Even then, the rates rose and fell depending on how strictly the policy was enforced at that place and time.
Much is Sad
Sad is not quite the word I want. Negative, angry, and needs-to-be-changed were all contenders.
In reading this book, there was much that was sad. The fragile place of women in the traditionally patrilineal Chinese society. Communism and the social reforms it introduced had helped ameliorate that, but in times of economic downturn or when under other pressures, this reasserted itself. The population control policy, lack of social welfare programs for the elderly, and other factors combined to create a hard situation for women, and particularly for second- and third-daughters.
Another thing that struck me was the harsh and legalistic way in which the population control policy was often enforced. This aspect of its enforcement ranged from the comical—sterilizing a 65-year-old man who had adopted—to the horrific—forced abortions in the ninth month of pregnancy.
Much is Positive
But much is also positive, and much of this rarely gets mentioned in discussions of Chinese infant abandonment and population control policies.
China has a strong tradition of adoption, mostly informal. Until the population control policies were introduced in the late 1970s, this tradition was enough to find homes for all the healthy abandoned children. Unless there was a famine or other extenuating circumstances, orphanages were just for children who required more medical care than the parents were able to afford.
Also, Chinese do value their daughters. Most of the families Johnson talks about said that their preferred family would have both a son and a daughter. The reality that these parents live under, however, is reflected in the book’s title: Wanting a Daughter, Needing a Son.
Looking at the page references I’ve given, you’d think I hadn’t made it past page 55. Actually, I’m on page 135. Just to set the record straight.
I’ll keep posting on this book as I read more of, and I’ll keep you up-to-date on other adoption-related reading I’m doing.
